The Seven Stars

by Simon Leighton-Porter

  For the small group of men huddled round a table in the battered central redoubt, the news from the northern walls had just brought that last moment ever closer.

  The messenger was bloodied, unshaven and exhausted by forty two days of manning the walls. His eyes seemed fixed on some point far in the distance as he spoke. ‘Their ramp is nearly level with the top of the outer wall, sir. We’ve attacked and burned their battering ram twice but they’ve brought up a new one.’

  ‘Then destroy it too,’ said Josephus, his face set in an outward show of determination.

  ‘We aim to, sir, but there’s more. An envoy from Vespasian brought this. He said it could only be delivered into your hands because no one else would understand it.’ The messenger passed Josephus a papyrus scroll bearing a seal that he recognised at once.

  ‘Is the envoy still here?’

  ‘Yes, sir. He awaits your reply. We’ve blindfolded him and given him food and water – I told him we’ve got so much he can take a goatskin-full back with him if he likes.’

  ‘Good man,’ said Josephus with a rare chuckle. ‘That’ll give them something to think about. Sit down and wait while I write a reply.’ He spread the papyrus flat, holding it in place with his ink-stand. In the surface of the table, Josephus had scored a tabula recta formed by the twenty three letters of the Latin alphabet: the key he knew by heart.

  The message to Josephus from Vespasian was stark in its awfulness. Deliver the city and its inhabitants or face a prolonged and very public death for the entertainment of the Roman mob. Josephus took out a wax tablet and began writing his reply. After twenty or so words he stopped, used the key to encrypt the Latin, wrote the encoded version on the unused side of Vespasian’s message, double-checking each letter against the key and then wiping the wax tablet clean. When he’d finished, he rolled the papyrus into a cylinder and sealed it. Turning the wooden frame over the candle until every last trace of wax had melted, he turned to the others and said, ‘Alea iacta est.’ The die is cast.

  ‘What have you written?’ the messenger asked.

  ‘Vespasian wants us to surrender. I’ve told him my troops will fight to the last man. I also said that if it is God’s will that Rome prevails, then I trust his honour as a fellow nobleman to spare our women, our children and the old. Now take it and go.’

  Chapter Thirty-four

  Manhattan, the East Side

  A second gunshot rang out. For good effect, Flora screamed once more at the top of her voice. The arrest team burst into the office to see a fan of blood spattered against the wall and a dark, crimson pool spreading on the floor. Raymond stayed face down where he’d taken cover under the desk and Luzzo lay propped against the wall, clutching his arm and yelling at the top of his voice: the round from Flora’s .38 had taken a ricochet off his fourth rib and shattered his left humerus just below the ball joint of his shoulder.

  ‘Will he be all right?’ Flora asked, her voice shrill and her bottom lip trembling.

  ‘Sure, ma’am,’ the team-leader said, lowering his automatic weapon and applying the safety catch. ‘The noisy ones always do fine, it’s the quiet ones who’re hurt bad.’

  Under the influence of a morphine shot, Luzzo calmed down and now sat upright below a small crater in the wall which showed where Cohen had loosed off a second round, aiming deliberately wide. The .38 was now in his pocket.

  In all the mayhem following the shooting and arrests no one paid much attention to Flora whose face had turned an unhealthy shade of lime green and was swaying on her feet. ‘I don’t feel very well, Ben,’ she said. ‘Would anybody mind if I went and sat down?’ Putting his arm around her shoulder Cohen led her to an empty office where, as soon as the door was closed, she burst into tears and threw herself into his arms. ‘What have I done?’ she sobbed. ‘That poor man. I could have killed him.’ The sound of a low-velocity round thudding into a human body had brought all the bad memories back.

  ‘He could have killed us. You saved my life, you realise that? Mine, yours and possibly half the arrest team.’ She shook her head and snivelled miserably, hiding her face against his chest while he stroked the top of her head.

  ‘You don’t understand,’ replied Flora, her words muffled by his shirt front. ‘All I could think of was the finds. I wanted to kill him… I hated him, both of them for what they’ve ruined. It was so easy. That’s what’s so awful. And all that blood…’

  ‘Don’t worry, he’s going to be fine: you did brilliantly and we’ve still got two live suspects.’

  ‘Then why did you try and finish him off?’ she asked, staring up at him accusingly.

  ‘I didn’t. I had to fire a second round to make sure I had powder residue on me. There probably won’t be any need for them to swab my hands or clothes, but just in case, it needs to look like I fired both rounds. Remember what I said about paperwork?’ She nodded and he continued. ‘Now, let’s get you back to the hotel.’

  Cohen collected her the following morning at ten and drove her to the FBI offices at Federal Plaza. ‘Got some good news for you,’ he said as they headed downtown through the gridlock. ‘Your buddy Luzzo’s gonna be fine – a few pins and stuff in his arm but that’s it – and Raymond’s agreed to co-operate.’ Flora smiled weakly but said nothing. ‘And you,’ he said, ‘get to play with the finds we took off them. We need to know what’s still missing.’

  At once, all her tiredness evaporated and she sat upright in her seat, turning a broad smile on him. ‘Oh, Ben, that’s fantastic. It makes yesterday almost seem worthwhile.’

  ‘Only almost?’ he teased.

  ‘You know what I mean. Did you find anything more?’

  ‘Yes and that’s what I’m taking you to see. What Raymond brought to the meet was only a small sample of what he had tucked away. I spoke to your Carabinieri buddy Lombardi last night, and it looks like we may’ve recovered a significant part of what was stolen from Pompeii, but we need you to confirm it for us.’

  ‘It’ll be a pleasure,’ beamed Flora. ‘But hang on a minute. Shouldn’t it all go back to Francesco Moretti’s team in Pompeii? After all, that’s where the finds belong.’

  ‘Don’t worry, everything will find its way back to the rightful owners. The Met Museum’s looking after everything, but for now, the fewer people who know about the arrests the better, and that includes Moretti and his people.’

  ‘But why? The poor man’s worried sick.’

  ‘Let’s just say we don’t want the news leaking in Italy and making the Carabinieri’s job any harder.’

  Flora spent the next five days in a room on the second level of the Metropolitan Museum of Art’s Thomas J Watson Library, working on the finds retrieved after the raid. When she had finished the final edit of her report she called Cohen.

  ‘Good news?’ he asked.

  ‘Not sure.’ Flora had checked her results so many times she’d lost count, but they still didn’t make sense.

  ‘What do you mean?’

  ‘I’ll tell you when I see you. You in the office?’

  Half an hour later Cohen showed her into a meeting room. ‘So what’s missing?’ he asked before she’d even had chance to sit down.

  ‘Quite a bit. Probably about seventy five percent.’

  ‘That’s bad.’

  ‘It may be worse. There seem to be other sections missing that we didn’t know about – well, according to Donald Sumter anyway.’

  ‘What do you mean?’

  ‘Remember we talked about Sumter going on TV and giving press interviews about photos of documents from the Pompeii dig?’

  ‘Vaguely,’ replied Cohen.

  ‘He keeps going on about Aramaic texts which he says are eye-witness accounts of the New Testament period – the “Q document” to be precise. Thing is, I simply don’t ever remember seeing them.’

  ‘It’s a big collection, you could’ve missed something.’

  Flora shook her head. ‘Possible but I don’t think I did. Although Moretti’s peo
ple hadn’t finished cataloguing, anything in Aramaic would’ve jumped out at me, particularly something as important as the pages Sumter’s on about.’

  ‘So you’re saying there’s more missing than we thought?’

  She thought for a moment. ‘Well sort of… it looks that way. I suppose we ought to be grateful to Donald Sumter for being so meticulous. But I’m one hundred percent positive the texts he’s copied weren’t there when I looked at the collection.’

  ‘So I can tell my supervisor we’re onto a new development?’

  ‘Well…’

  ‘It’d be a great help, Flora.’

  ‘OK, Ben. I’ll keep my misgivings to myself if it helps.’

  ‘It sure does,’ he said, leaping to his feet. ‘Stay here, I’ll be back in five.’ He returned in less than two minutes and this time his face wore a broad grin. ‘My supervisor’s pissed as hell but you just got me a reprieve. The word from on high is we have to be seen as co-operating with the Italians, and until we find out what happened to the whole collection, the ACT gets to stay on the case. He’s gonna call Lombardi now.’

  ‘If it’s not a stupid question,’ Flora said, wrinkling her brow. ‘Had you thought of asking Raymond and his chum to double-check the list of what they’ve sold?’

  ‘Not a stupid question, and yes we have. Says he doesn’t remember anything in Aramaic.’

  Flora looked at him scornfully. ‘Like he’d recognise Aramaic.’

  ‘Funnily enough, he might. He’s an educated guy. Math and statistics major, former senior manager at Enron. Anyway, he lost everything: house, family, kids, the works. Couldn’t even get a job in a 7-11 with that hanging over him, so he found another way of paying the bills as he puts it.’

  She frowned. ‘I wish he’d found some other way of making a living.’

  ‘There’s another thing. We know the buyer’s still keen and we now know what happened at the first handover. The buyer’s contacts tried to double-cross Raymond and he shot one of them. Couple of college kids he says, which ties in with the body the local police found.’

  ‘College kids?’

  ‘Yeah: from your buddy Sumter’s Bible College – William Sunday University.’

  ‘That’s a weird coincidence,’ Flora said.

  ‘Yeah, that’s what I thought at first, but when you think about it, if Sumter told his students what he’d been doing in Pompeii – no reason why he shouldn’t – and somehow a couple of them got a line into Raymond, after all, he’s been fencing artwork for the last ten years or so he says, then it kinda figures that they might want to get involved. Religious fervour and all. Don’t forget, they’ve had stuff taken from their archives too.’

  ‘Any other witnesses?’

  Cohen nodded. ‘Yeah, and this is where it gets weirder still. Raymond’s told us both he and Luzzo were there, but in addition to the two kids, they ran into the local pastor – the Reverend Morley – who comes running into the middle of things, twelve gauge at the ready, all ’cause he thought someone was trying to break into the church. Raymond says he snowed him with some vigilante baloney about how they were going round checking on churches that’d been vandalised.’

  ‘And?’

  ‘Morley’s wife reported him missing last Sunday evening. Local cops found him a couple of days later in the woods near their house.’

  ‘Murdered?’ asked Flora.

  ‘No, looks like suicide. Full pathology report’s not out yet but they’re saying he took a big handful of painkillers and slashed his wrists with a box-cutter.’

  ‘Seems rather a lot of coincidences.’

  ‘Sure does. Anyway, after that, they arranged a second meet which involved Luzzo running half way round Alabama before he could make the deal.’

  Flora perched on the edge of the table, tapping distractedly at the keyboard of her laptop as she scrolled through her report once more. ‘I keep thinking I must’ve missed something, but I can’t see where. Are you sure what we retrieved plus the pieces Raymond claims he sold tie up with the Carabinieri’s list of missing finds?’

  ‘Pretty much. Like you said, it hadn’t been accurately catalogued but the Aramaic stuff Sumter photographed isn’t on anybody’s list. We’ve got to find who’s got it.’

  Flora looked at him sideways. ‘I don’t like it when you say “we” like that,’ she said. ‘Who did you have in mind?’

  ‘Mr Grossman and Miss Crump.’

  ‘I was afraid you were going to say that.’

  Cohen smiled. ‘Don’t worry, it won’t be anything like last time.’

  ‘Good,’ said Flora, keeping a straight face. ‘Because if it is, I’ll shoot you first, just in case.’

  He threw back his head and laughed. ‘OK, enough already,’ he said, raising both hands in surrender. ‘I’ve seen you in action. I promise it’ll be safe.’

  Chapter Thirty-five

  Jotapata, Galilee, July AD 67

  Inching forward under the cover of darkness, the small Roman force reached the foot of the wall. The officer in charge paused for a moment to make sure there were no stragglers, and then moved off to the left, feeling his way along the stonework, his mouth dry with anticipation. The opening was narrow and set into a deep recess. Heart pounding, he pushed against the door: as promised it was unlocked. Once inside he counted his soldiers through and then shut it behind them, taking the lead for the ascent of the narrow stairway which led into the heart of the fortress. Forty seven days without being able to breach the walls and now at last they were inside.

  In the upper works of Jotapata a single figure, bent almost double to avoid detection by the sentries, scuttled away from the central redoubt. Sweating from a mixture of exertion and fear, he looked over his shoulder to ensure he’d not been seen and then dashed round the corner into the small courtyard. At first he thought he’d run into a wall, but as a rule, walls neither grunt nor swear and as an enormous hand reached down, he recognised the man immediately. ‘What’s the rush, sir?’ asked the sentry, helping Josephus to his feet. ‘The Romans are quiet as mice tonight. I don’t think they’ll try anything before morning.’

  ‘Oh, you…. you know, just doing my rounds,’ Josephus said. ‘Making sure everyone’s on their toes.’

  The sentry made no reply and stared out into the darkness from where the night-time sounds of the Roman camp came softly on the breeze. ‘Good job it was you, sir,’ he said.

  ‘Why’s that?’ Josephus asked, regaining a little of his composure.

  ‘Well, at this time of night, if it was anyone else but you headed towards the breach, I’d have run them through on the spot for desertion. Wouldn’t be the first time I’ve had to do it,’ he added.

  ‘Quite right too. Well done and keep it up.’ Josephus marched off the way he’d come, trying to look as warlike as possible, all the while cursing under his breath. Now he was stuck. In the dark, Vespasian’s troops wouldn’t recognise him from the other defenders and he was likely to meet the same fate.

  As predicted, the door to the upper courtyard was also unlocked. All around was quiet. From somewhere away to the south came the sound of snoring and the squad moved soundlessly forwards towards the first picket post. The two sentries were dead before they hit the ground, their throats slit by Roman steel. The detachment moved on leaving two men as rearguard while a third climbed onto the walls before letting down a long white streamer. At this signal, a dozen shadows came to life and stole through the night towards the outer door. The pass was sold.

  By daybreak the bulk of the fighting was over and Vespasian’s troops flooded into the city.

  A runner skidded to a halt in front of the general and saluted. ‘Well?’ asked Vespasian. ‘Have they found him?’

  ‘Still nothing, sir.’

  ‘Tell them to keep looking. As for the others, no prisoners.’

  Twenty feet above his head the heat was unbearable, but in the cistern below the south-west tower Josephus shivered in the cool, green, dripping twilight.
Shouts, battle-cries and oaths filtered down from above, but worst of all was the terrible screaming of the women and children. He tried to block his ears but to no avail. Occasionally, a Roman soldier would hurl a small child down through the grille above the cistern, the splash soaking him as he crouched in terror, not daring to move.

  Towards the end of the afternoon the sounds of destruction seemed further off, no doubt the Romans’ mopping-up operations had started and it was only a matter of time before every last hiding place, including his own, would be discovered.

  In a few hours it would be dark – if he left it until after nightfall, he risked going unrecognised and being cut down like the thousands of others who had entrusted their lives to him; if he moved too soon, he might get caught up in the inevitable running battles between the Romans and those defenders making a last-ditch bid for freedom. Witnesses were the last thing he needed.

  By the time Josephus moved, it was almost pitch dark in the cistern and he groped for the bottom rung of the series of iron hoops which led upwards towards the surface. Just below the grille he eased himself into the slimy darkness of the overflow pipe: ahead was a narrow sliver of light. Inching along the pipe on his back, pushing with his feet he stopped at the point where the light shone and, reaching above his head, pushed hard with both hands. At first the slab refused to move and panic rose in his throat. He tried again and this time, the slab moved, allowing him to lever it to one side and crawl out. He was just working it back into place when a voice came from behind. ‘Halt, stand still, lay down your arms.’ Raising his hands slowly above his head Josephus turned around to see the soldier thrust the point of his javelin to within two inches of his chest. ‘Identify yourself,’ he shouted.